He mastered ḥadith—and imbibed a measure of Shiʿi tendency as well—and was a prodigious and capable memorizer. It is said that he knew by heart four hundred thousand ḥadiths with their chains of transmission and their texts, could cross-check six hundred thousand ḥadiths, and had memorized a similar number of mursal and muqaṭṭaʿ reports and historical anecdotes. He also retained the names of narrators, their criticism and accreditation, the dates of their deaths, and their doctrinal leanings, so that he outstripped the scholars of his age and surpassed all of his peers.
He would sit to dictate, and crowds would press around his house; he dictated solely from memory, providing the isnād and the matn of each ḥadith in an accurate, well-edited, and sound form. Like his teacher Ibn ʿUqda, he was charged with Shiʿite leanings, and he lived among them at Bāb al-Baṣrah. When al-Dāraquṭnī was asked about him, he said, “He was confused.” Abū Bakr al-Barqānī remarked, “He was fond of oddities, his inclination toward Shiʿism is well-known, and it has been reported that he was weak in religious observance and drank wine—Allah knows best.”
When death approached him, he ordered his books burned, so they were burned—along with many other people’s books that were in his possession. What a deplorable deed! As his bier was carried out, Sukaynah—the professional wailer of the Rāfiḍites—lamented over him at his funeral.
Entry on al-Dumastaq (1)
The king of the Armenians, whose name was Naqfūr, died in 352 AH—some say 355 (2), and others 356 AH.
This accursed man was one of the most hard-hearted of kings, the most unbelieving, the strongest in might and power, and the most given to fighting the Muslims of his time. During his reign—may Allah curse him—he seized many, indeed most, of the coastal regions, wresting them by force from Muslim hands; they remained under his oppressive rule and were annexed to the Byzantine realm. Such was the consequence of the slackness of that era’s Muslims, the spread of vile innovations among them, and the abundance of sin.
In 351 AH he fell upon Aleppo with two hundred thousand troops without warning, swept through it, and its ruler, Sayf al-Dawlah, fled before him. The wretch took the city by storm, slaughtered from its men and women numbers known only to Allah, wrecked Sayf al-Dawlah’s palace outside Aleppo, seized its wealth, stores, and equipment, scattered its resources (3) and dispersed its forces. The affair of that accursed man grew exceedingly grave—indeed we belong to Allah and to Him we shall return. He strove relentlessly in battling Islam and its people and exerted himself to the utmost, but judgment belongs to Allah, the Most High, the All-Great.
Whenever he entered a town—may Allah curse him—he would kill the combatants and the rest of the men, enslave the women and children, turn its central mosque into a stable for his horses, smash its pulpit, and silence its mu’adhdhins with his cavalry, infantry, and drums. He persisted in that practice until Allah empowered his own wife against him: together with her maidservants she killed him in the middle of his residence, and Allah granted relief to Islam and its people from him,